Changes in 2.53.4

Released 2024-02-19

• Improved and simplified makefiles. Please review your build scripts for changed build goals, input variables and build artifact names. See INSTALL.md for details.
• opam build uses the makefile build system.
• Various fixes in Windows and Cygwin builds.
• Preferences "force", "prefer" and related "partial" preferences now work slightly differently with values "newer" and "older". Previously, if mtimes in both replicas were equal then always the second root propagated to the first root (possibly reverting user changes). It is now made explicit that "newer" and "older" only work when mtimes are different.
• Cleanups in documentation.
• Bugfixes, minor improvements, cleanups.

2.53.3

2.53.3 contains bugfixes and improvements.

• On Linux, allow syncing the xattrs where POSIX draft ACLS are stored, which enables syncing the ACL info. (Note that this does not enable syncing ACLs with the -acl switch, and does not enable syncing ACLs between other systems and Linux. See the manual.)
• Improved ETA calculation and sync speed display in text UI.
• Fix CI Windows builds (again).
• Drop unmaintained "make install" target.
• Bugfixes, minor improvements, cleanups.

This release is identical to 2.53.1, except that the included version string is correct.

• Change version string to 2.53.2 (2.53.1 identified as 2.53.0).

[Note that while the release is not defective, in that one can build for Windows from the sources, the CI artifacts for Windows were missing gtk shared libraries due to not-understood changes in github CI that appear to be bugs. The Windows artifacts have thus been withdrawn, and CI artifacts from master just after 2.53.2, with a workaround, are available at https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/actions/runs/4500920455. Artifacts for GNU/Linux and macOS are not troubled.]

2.53.1 contains bugfixes and improvements.

• Repeat mode is more fault tolerant, recovering after temporary errors.
• Preferences "force", "prefer" and related no longer require specifying the full root.
• Improve stopping of update propagation.
• Enable VT input escape codes in Windows.
• Respect user-provided CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LDLIBS.
• Add build instructions in INSTALL.md (and drop from manual).
• Add graceful stop in repeat mode - SIGUSR2.
• Add watch+seconds to 'repeat' preference.

2.53.0

2.53.0 is a significant release with new features (xattr, ACLs), a change to GTK3, and many bugfixes. All users are urged to upgrade.

• OCaml >= 4.08 is required to build unison.
• unison can be built with (unreleased) OCaml 5.
• Change GUI to use GTK3 (via lablgtk3) instead of GTK2 (via lablgtk2)
• Add support for syncing extended attributes.
• Add support for syncing ACLs.
• On Windows, add the ability to build unison as a hybrid application (GUI application attached to a text console) by defining UI_WINOS=hybrid (see src/Makefile). Add this to CI. (Doing this for non-Windows is unnecessary as all applications, both GUI and non-GUI, are always executed with a connection to stdout/stderr. GUI-only applications (ie, no stdout/stderr) is a Windows-only concept.)
• Notable bugfixes
  • Merge results are stored in archive more accurately.
  • Windows \\?\ paths now work correctly (including \\?\Volume{GUID}\ paths).
• CI changes
  • The macOS binaries are properly signed.
  • Add workaround for bugs in the github CI Windows builds, one of which resulted in the 2.52.1 GUI version failing, in the Windows CI build artifacts. (This does not affect platforms other than Windows, and may not affect other Windows builds.)
• Changes that should not affect behavior
  • Clean up a variety of unmaintained and unused bits, mainly build-related.
  • OCaml's Unix library is now extensively used also on Windows. This allowed removal of large amount of Windows-specific OCaml and mainly C code.

2.52.1 is a maintenance release in the 2.52 series. All users are strongly encouraged to migrate all systems on which they use unison to 2.52.1. Fairly soon, only reports about 2.52.1 will be allowed in the issue tracker.

2.52.1 is expected to be the last release in the 2.52 series, absent prompt (7 days) discovery and reporting of a serious problem.

After a 7-day hold, work towards 2.53 may be merged. In particular this will include changing the minimum ocaml version to 4.08. Once this happens, there will not be any more 2.52.x releases, as no one contributing to unison maintenance is interested in supporting old versions. Of course, the license gives anyone the ability to create or cherry-pick fixes and to use the fixed versions.

Changes in 2.52.1

Released 2022-05-08

- Deprecate ocaml < 4.08: 2.53.0 will require 4.08 or higher
- Add man page
- Remove rsh:// URI scheme (ssh:// of course remains).
- Significant bugfixes and minor improvements
- Deprecate "backups" preference (see manual for alternatives)
- Deprecate "stream" and "halfduplex" preferences

See the 2.52.0 entry at https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/blob/master/NEWS.md

The major changes are a new wire protocol, a new archive format, and feature negotiation. In particular, once two machines have been upgraded to 2.52.0 or later, it is possible to use unison compiled with different ocaml versions within a machine (mtaintaining the ability to read archives) and across machines.

While this release is expected to work seamlessly with existing archives and with 2.51.[0-5] peers, backups are always in order. Once this release has been run on a root, the upgraded archives will no longer be readable by stable 2.51 releases.

The 2.52 series, expected to be brief in time, is very likely the last group of releases to support old ocaml. All users are strongly encouraged to being making plans to migrate all systems on which they use unison to 2.52.

This is a release candidate for the 2.52.0 release. Packagers are requested not to update the main unison package to it (2.51.5 is still the most recent proper release), but are encouraged to package unison-snapshot or some similar name so that users can test this.

Compared to 2.51.90, the main change is a bug fix for a thread safety problem that has so far only been observed on Windows, and perhaps only on GHA.

See the 2.52.0 entry at https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/blob/master/NEWS.md

The major changes are a new wire protocol, a new archive format, and feature negotiation. While this release is expected to work seamlessly with existing archives and with 2.51.[0-5] peers, backups are always in order. Once this release has been run on a root, the upgraded archives will no longer be readable by stable 2.51 releases.

All users are encouraged to test this release candidate, and to begin planning how they will upgrade all computers running unison to it once 2.52.0 is formally released.

This is a release candidate for the 2.52.0 release. Packagers are requested not to update the main unison package to it (2.51.5 is still the most recent proper release), but are encouraged to package unison-snapshot or some similar name so that users can test this.

See the 2.52.0 entry at https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/blob/master/NEWS.md

The major changes are a new wire protocol, a new archive format, and feature negotiation. While this release is expected to work seamlessly with existing archives and with 2.51.[0-5] peers, backups are always in order. Once this release has been run on a root, the upgraded archives will no longer be readable by stable 2.51 releases.

All users are encouraged to test this release candidate, and to begin planning how they will upgrade all computers running unison to it once 2.52.0 is formally released.

This is an alpha release, and is a step towards a 2.52.0 release. Packagers are requested not to update the main unison package to it (2.51.5 is still the most recent proper release), but are encouraged to package unison-snapshot or some similar name so that users can test this.

See the 2.52.0 entry at https://github.com/bcpierce00/unison/blob/f229ad2a2ebc547b9b6432046dda622eee4fc775/NEWS.md

The major changes are a new wire protocol, a new archive format, and feature negotiation. While this release is expected to work seamlessly with existing archives and with 2.51.[0-5] peers, backups are always in order. Once this release has been run on a root, the upgraded archives will no longer be readable by stable 2.51 releases.